Apple Music Using Too Much Cellular Data

Bahbahbah....

I converted my Apple Services to a One Family subscription yesterday, which gave me Apple Music in addition for a few euros. I had twice in the past taken out a trial subscription to AM and invariably AM consumes mobile data in the background. This night it did so again. When I picked up my iPhone 11 Pro Max this morning, it was already warm, warm from having been busy with something and my remaining battery had dropped to almost 10 where it had been at almost 100 going into the night. Because I already had a strong suspicion I checked my mobile data usage. Yes, despite excellent WiFi coverage, last night AM used 1.7GB. I have a large data bundle, so I can suffer this, but I don't want this to happen every night, because then I'll soon have a problem.

I have now switched off mobile data use, just to be sure. But what could this be? AM hasn't downloaded anything, but has been busy with something. But with what? This is not an isolated case, but happens time and again under exactly the same conditions.

To say that I am desperate is going a bit too far, but this is so incredibly irritating. Google Searches have not yielded me anything in the past. I will do so again soon, because there may have been more cases like this in the past few months.

Does anyone recognise this? Who can help me on my way?

Edit: found several similar hits. Lots of data use while on WiFi. But unfortunately no solutions.

Thanks for getting back to us CLJason.

Do you know if you have lossless audio turned on in your Music settings? If enabled, this could be what is contributing to the increased cellular data usage, as it requires additional data stream music with this feature. The steps in the "How to turn lossless on or off" section in the article below will help walk you through making sure that feature is disabled.

About lossless audio in Apple Music

If you continue to notice high data cellular data usage from Music or already have lossless audio turned off, we suggest reaching out to Apple Support so they can look into this with you further. You can see your available support options using the link below.

Get Support

Take care.

There are a few other discussions on this as well linked below. Sounds like you resolved your issue by changing your mobile streaming to 'high efficiency' however this does not work for most people. Please keep an eye on your data usage. This issue seems to only affect a small number of people so far but hopefully someone from Apple will respond. This issue is making Apple Music no longer an option as a service as it consumes way too much cellular data.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253015452

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252992146

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252886180

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252528616

Further to my note above, I had a running discussion with Support, asking them to escalate... Not sure they did...

They told me to do all the obvious stuff, including turning off data on Music, but that is totally beside the point of having a 4/5G network, Iphone and. music in your pocket...

Check out this screenshot of my data usage in August..

Hi there CLJason,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple SUpport Community. We understand you have some concerns about Apple Music using too much cellular data. When you do stream music, are you listening to specific songs or albums or streaming radio stations? It's possible if you've been listening to more radio stations recently, this is the reason for the uptick in cellular data. Also if you have enough space on your device, it may help to download specific music that you'd want to listen to while connected to a Wi-Fi source to listen to later when you don't have access to Wi-Fi. This can also help lower cellular data usage.

We hope this helps.

I never used more than 2.5GB data in an entire month on my iPhone. Then at the end of my phone billing cycle for June of this year, my data jumped to 5gb and the jump was caused by a sudden increase in Apple Music. I only listen an hour a day abs I have been doing this since I signed up for Apple Music in January of this year. This data usage hike coincides with an iPhone update done in June.

I reset my phone settings cellular data usage to see the usage of all my apps. And now Apple Music is using 1GB a week!

I see that at least one other person has posted this problem, so it’s clearly nothing just my problem.

I even changed the Apple Music settings to the reduced steaming quality since this usage hike occurred and it made no difference.

Since Apple Music is costing me to pay for extra data, if I don’t receive a response with a fix to this problem, I will cancel my subscription.

Yes, it is certainly frustrating. I've noticed it now for about the last three months. I posted this in another discussion but I'll repost here:

I ran a quick test this morning and this is what I found

iPhone 11 Running iOS 14.7.1

My Apple Music settings are:

Cellular Data - On

Cellular Streaming - High Efficiency

Lossless Audio - Off

Dolby Atmos - Automatic

Download over Cellular - Off

Download in Dolby Atmos - On

Atomatic Download - On

Animated Cover Art - Wi-Fi Only

I reset my Cellular data statistic then disabled Wi-Fi and listened to 5 songs over the course of 12 minutes. I listened to each song for 2-3 minutes before skipping to the next song. After I checked the cellular data usage and Apple Music used 104 MB of data. That’s just over 20 MB of data per song or just over 8.5 MB of data per minute. I’m not sure if that’s normal but it sounds pretty high to me.

OMG! I believe your test because Shen I do the math, my usage per song seems roughly the same.

im going to call Apple today and complain. My guess is that most people may have not noticed this change with the June update if they have a large data plan and share it with their family. They may just assume it was family members streaming more than usual. But my plan is just for my usage (as it seems likely for you too). May I forward a screenshot copy of your test to Apple?

Yes, feel free to use any of the info I provided.

I had a 4GB data plan which in the past I would almost never exceed even using music liberally. In the last 3 months or so I would have to make sure to extremely limit my music usage and I’d still exceed my data plan by 2-4GB.

If you get any info from Apple please update this post. I filed a bug report a few weeks ago but never got any feedback. Good luck!

Thanks. I went through the exact circumstances! I just called Apple and I have a support rep working on my case.

He helped me to know what screens to screenshot and save to photos from my phone settings and my carrier.

He asked me to do what you did, to listen to music with my wifi turned off for 30 minutes. And I took “after” screenshots to see how much data was used for the music app.

They me run a diagnosis on my phone that sent the results to Apple.

I also sent then images of my carrier billing statements that showed my consistent 2.2-2.5GB used from January to June and then it shows how I maxed out at 4GB. I then I got a better plan from

my provider with 8Gb starting June 14th…so it shows how from June to July my data went up to 5.14GB.

I told him this was reported by someone else on Apple forum so it can’t be just me.

I’ll let you know what happens in case Apple solves the problem and you can call them to open a ticket. You might want to do that now do they see 2 open tickets with the same problem of Music using more data. It would be good for both of us if you open a ticket.

Hi again, I just wanted to let you know that as soon as I noticed my data increase, I changed the Apple Music setting from high quality to high efficiency (lower audio quality) and it made no difference.

Apple support followed up yesterday but I missed his email during his office hours. Hoping to find out more today.

Also, CLJason, since my Music was set to high quality the entire time before the data usage increase began in June. So it’s not surprising that the problem was not solved after I changed the settings to high efficiency.